“I don’t feel like many people know me for baseball,” Eichelberger said. “I don’t feel like I’m known for anything. I’m just little Breck Eichelberger.”

But really the only thing small about Eichelberger is his ERA. At 6 feet, 3 inches, the Snow Canyon senior ace has been mowing down batters all season. Eichelberger has only allowed one earned run heading into Wednesday's showdown with undefeated Dixie (7:30 p.m. @ Snow Canyon).

So if you don’t know him for baseball, that just means you haven’t been paying attention.

With an improved curveball, the Snow Canyon senior has gone from fastball specialist to one of the most unhittable pitchers in the entire state. Eichelberger has a 0.16 ERA, has struck out 60 batters and has held opposing hitters to a .180 average against him this season.

“The curveball has been better,” Snow Canyon coach Reed Secrist said. “And the velocity has stayed all year, and last year it was more up and down.”

“I’ve been able to throw (the curve) for strikes,” Eichelberger said. “That’s what’s really helped me this season. Last season, I was more of a fastball guy, but now I can mix in fastball, curveball, changeup pretty well.”

He was a good enough “fastball guy” to earn a scholarship with the University of San Francisco and to finish his junior year with a 3.30 ERA. But with the consistent curve, he can now do so much more than just try to overpower hitters. He can fool them, too. And he’s been fooling just about everyone.

A slight of thumb

The development of his curveball began at a young age. It started with him throwing a bottle or a football and just trying to get them to go in a 12-6 rotation. But while that helped him get the rotation right, he struggled to get it to break the way he wanted. That was the problem last season, and it looked like he was going to have the same issue again this year.

Eichelberger worked all offseason to improve the curve, but when the first game of the year rolled around, it still wasn’t doing what he wanted it too. He could get it break, but he almost had to overthrow it to do so.

“I felt like I had to throw it 100 mph,” Eichelberger said. “So I was like, ‘How do I limit this and still have the same arm action?’”

So he began playing around with it. And soon he found something.

During warmups one day, he slid his thumb down on the ball just a hair and threw the curve. It broke. Encouraged, he next went to the bullpen and tried it again, and it worked again.

“That got the ball to flick out of my hand and it started to break a lot more,” Eichelberger said.

And just like that, he had another pitch in his arsenal. He had figured out how to throw the curve.

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Snow Canyon High School pitcher Breck Eichelberger strikes out a Cedar High School batter at CHS Tuesday, April 3, 2018.(Photo: James M. Dobson / The Spectrum & Daily News)

A true pitcher

Pitch experimenting wasn’t new for Eichelberger. In fact, it was kind of old hat. He had always liked to pitch, but he wasn’t always great at it. Or even good.

“I threw freaking weird,” Eichelberger said. “... My arm was right by my ear. I threw a four-seam with three fingers, I literally had no idea what I was doing.”

So it took some time to figure out how to pitch.

With the help of former Dixie State pitching coach (and now current BYU pitching coach) Jeremy Thomas, he retooled everything. He learned the proper grips for pitches and Thomas instructed him to throw sidearm to try and get the delivery down.

“It wasn't really sidearmed, but it felt sidearm to me,” Eichelberger said. “The more and more I did it, he kept telling me to go lower and eventually we found a happy medium, which was the three-quarter arm slot.”

Unlike some of the region’s other top pitchers — Dixie’s Tyson Fisher and Cooper Vest, Snow Canyon’s Austin Deming and Desert Hills’ Drew Thorpe — Eichelberger is a pitching specialist. He hasn't had an at-bat this whole season.

“I just like pitching. I’m just a pitcher. It’s my favorite,” Eichelberger said. “I use to hit good when I was younger. I was a three-hitter, but once I got to 12 I kind of stopped hitting.”

Eichelberger admitted he wouldn’t mind stepping into the batter’s box again “just to see what happens,” but with the Region 9 championship on the line this week against Dixie, that probably won’t be happening.

“I think him taking the ball on the mound Tuesday will be good enough,” Secrist said.